It's the most hyped device of the moment, a device that nobody has laid eyes on without an NDA death-grip. While rumour and speculation escalate (sometimes giving way to apathy), little has leaked out of Cupertino. But nobody seems to be asking whether this tablet thing will be successful or not.

Exactly what innovations first appeared in the Iphone? Please list them.

I wouldn't say that the iPhone had that many innovative features. What makes the iPhone a good phone is the combination of speed, ease of use, responsiveness, intuitive interface and minimizing the number of clicks (except of course your ellipsis example from the original version).

Also, please stop trying to spin "copy and paste" as a trivial feature. This capability was being used fairly often in smart phones long before the Iphone, as it is today.

I agree that it's not a trivial feature. But what people try to tell you is that it's something you can live without if the options you have are missing other things you enjoy, like speed and responsiveness.

In fact, I am glad that I am not composing this message on an Iphone, because part of my post is copied and pasted from Maddox's infamous, no-nonsense assessment of the original Iphone (and its theatrical announcement by Steve Jobs): http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone

Maddox is quite funny sometimes, but referring to him as an argument...? Doesn't look that serious.

As you can see from the Maddox page, the Iphone lacks other basic features, like having a period (".") on the keyboard. To type something as simple an ellipsis ("...") with the Iphone, one originally had to tap one's finger nine times and go into a sub-screens three times.

I agree that it's very stupid to not have a period on the keyboard directly. But as you said, the ellipsis problem has been fixed, like many other features. And double space equals a full stop now, not that intuitive though.

Can't see how it "requires" a tutorial just because someone made one. Artoftheiphone is not apple, and most or all cellphones comes with quite extensive manuals for tasks that should be straight forward.

Afaik the common standard for typing special characters, like "é", on many different interfaces is holding the base character of this character and choosing it from a sub menu. For us swedes, with our special åäö, this is quite common.

There are plenty of other Iphone UI problems and lack of features. On the Maddox page, note the comparison chart on the between the Iphone and an old Nokia N70.

Noted, and not up to date.

Customize ringtones: Is proven to be the music companies fault, but possible with software.
Can record video: Yes, now.
Screen turns into a smudgy piece of shit after a few minutes of use: Better than other touch screens with the new oleophobic screen.
Can send MMS: yes
Apple won't allow everyone to develop applications for it: SDK released almost 2 years ago
Voice dialing: Yes
Can record voice: Yes
Instant messaging: Yes
copy & paste text: Yes

Only thing that still is a problem according to that chart is the battery.